paper

The Morphology-Density Relation in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

arXiv:astro-ph/0312043 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2966.2003.07114.x

Abstract

We have studied the morphology-density relation and morphology--cluster-centric-radius relation using a volume limited sample (0.050.1, 20.5) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. We found there are two characteristic changes in both the morphology-density and the morphology-radius relations, suggesting two different mechanisms are responsible for the relations. In the sparsest regions (below 1 Mpc or outside of 1 virial radius), both relations become less noticeable, suggesting the responsible physical mechanisms for galaxy morphological change require denser environment. In the intermediate density regions (density between 1 and 6 Mpc or virial radius between 0.3 and 1), intermediate-type fractions increase toward denser regions, whereas late-disc fractions decrease. In the densest regions (above 6 Mpc or inside of 0.3 virial radius), intermediate-type fractions decrease radically and early-type fractions increase in turn. This is a contrasting result to that in intermediate regions and it suggests that yet another mechanism is more responsible for the morphological change in these regions. We also compared the morphology-density relation from the SDSS (0.010.054) with that of the MORPHS data (0.5). Two relations lie on top of each other, suggesting that the morphology-density relation was already established at 0.5 as is in the present universe.

arXiv comment15 pages, 20 figures, 2003, MNRAS, 346, 601

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